Unauthorized copying in decentralized networks using peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing has become a major concern to copyright owners. Unlike a centralized network, decentralization makes it commercially impractical to pursue all copyright violators in court. This is because decentralization requires filing lawsuits against virtually millions of client computer operators instead of only one party operating a central computer.
Accordingly, copyright owners seek other methods for protecting their copyrighted material, such as blocking, diverting or otherwise discouraging the unauthorized distribution of their copyrighted works on a publicly accessible decentralized or P2P file sharing network. In order to preserve the legitimate expectations and rights of users of such a network, however, it is desirable that copyright owners do not alter, delete, or otherwise impair the integrity of any computer file or data lawfully residing on the computer of a file sharer.
Although much of the concern and protection activity has been directed towards music files, other material such as computer programs are also subject to illegal copying and distribution on file sharing networks. Also, although protection activities are primarily directed towards preventing the distribution of material, it would be beneficial if the distribution of illegal copies of material in file sharing networks could also be used somehow to promote the sale of legal copies of the material.